August 01, 1985 by Sam Wilson & Gordon Aeschliman

East. Readable. Easy to understand. Want a good book to recommend to a friend? The Hidden Half is all these and more.

Reprinted here by permission of the copyright owner, MARC, is Chapter 10 and just a taste of Chapter II of this excellent overview of the frontier missions movement. Wilson and Aeschliman challenge us to find and hang onto a biblical basis for responding to our culture and the world around us.

A copy of The Hidden Half, normal retail $5.00, can be yours for only $4.85 through the Mission Frontiers Book Service (see inside back page).

Chapter Ten: The Problem of the Big Chill

Not too long ago. I was invited to speak at the missions emphasis week at my old college. I was supposed to tell the young excitables there what a "world Christian is.

Quite pleased to have the chance to affect another set of college students. I stepped up to the podium. I looked out on a crowd of new faces, but the scene felt very familiar. I had stood there many times as a student, urging my peers recommit themselves all out to Jesus Christ and his global mission. And from the audience, I had listened ton numberoffellowstudents challenge the student body to the same vision.

But, as I stood there thinking about the "campus radicals" of my college days, all my good memories melted away. I felt as if someone had hit me with a ton of bricks.

Where were those radicals now? A good percentage had slipped into a way of life that showed no more passion or activism than selling used cars. The vision that seemed to capture their very lives during their college years had vanished like a mist. Their passion had no substance; their convictions turned out to be shadows.

That night I came to a new understanding of what it means to be a world Christian. It had lobe more than words, more than a few years of activism. My commitment has real substance only ill can't separate my passian for the world from my identity as a person. Being a world Christian is first and foremost who I am, not just what I say or do.

Students lend to be susceptible to visions ofchanging the world. Just look at the radicals of the 1960's.

They were out to change a lot of things in the world around them, and some even died for their convictions. They staged riots, denounced abusive capitalism, burned banks, opposed trade with oppressive regimes and called for an end to war all in the name of making the world a better place.

What happened to those radicals? A popular movie, "The Big Chill," gives a glimpse of where some of them ended up a few years later. They became managers, stock brokers, up the Ladder career climbers, movie stars and big landowners. They bought into everything they used to stand against. The characters in the movie obviously felt uncomfortable about the disjointedness of their past radicalism and their present lifestyles. They couldn't figure out what went wrong with their great plans to change the world.

I'm sure noise of us would imagine ourselves letting go of our commitments to see all nations reached. None of my college peers thought they would, either, but somehow the pressures they faced after college proved too much for them.

Finding Zeal

To understand some of these pressures, let's look at the typical pattern of development in our culture during and after college years. First, most of us go from dependence to independence as we enter college.

Up to this point, ourparents have been responsible for us they even reported us on their tax forms as "dependents." They took care of rent, food, clothes, activities. They made major decisions for us or had a big part in helping us make them. Without realizing it, we absorbed many of their political and religious views. Around the age of seventeen things begin to change. If I go to 7 college, I am surrounded by a whole new set of people. Maybe for the first time 1 discover that Baplists also consider themselves Christians, or I meet charismaties that seem to love Jesus more than I do.

New ideas come at me a mile a minute. Perhaps I take a class in anthropology that harshly berates Western Christians forgoing toothcrpartsot the world and "ruining cultures." Or I take a class in apologetics or philosophy, and instead of understanding my beliefs more clearly, I find my foundations shaken. Maybe I meet some Marxists who have a better handle on understanding how society works than I do, and so I begin to doubt my own political orientation. I may find a job and begin repay my own expenses and make decisions about my tile that others used to make for me.

This process of shaking up old ideas and beliefs and being exposed to new ones in an environment of independence makes people at this stage more idealistic than they ever will be again.

No wonder the first time I plunge into an urban center! want to do all I canto help thedisplaced:orthe first time I see actual starvation I decide to drastically reduce my eating habits and watch my spending: or the first time it hits me that half the world suit does not know Jesus I decide to become 'a missionary! All these could he called reactions that Ill,'' 101 Al SM challenge our previous actions. We throw out old values and decide to 7 live our lives differently. Like the radicals of the 1960's. more than likely we have a clearer picture of what we are against than what we are for. Many of us during this time of life could be described as angry people. Angry at our homes, angry at our friends, angry at our churches. angry at our schools, angry at our nation.

Even if this reaction doesn't come out as anger, there is a high level of excitement and energy. lt'sduring this stage of idealism that most of us stand at missions conventions, 'Yes! We will do ii!" we announce. Our sincere hearts are wide open before God as he shows us his passion for the nations. We can't do anything but say, "Yes. Lord, use me," And it shouldn't be any other way!

Idealism's great rush to put new ideas and convictions into practice is good, but it's only the beginning. It's easy to cat less and cut expenses when you're surrounded by others committed to simple lifestyle. The idealist too often fails to look at his commitment as the start of a lifelong venture. College days and idealism don't last forever. How can the values and behaviors explored there become enough a part of me to stick when I'm taken out of a supportive, or at least tolerant.

Adding Knowledge

Proverbs 19:2 instructs: "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, or to be hasty and miss the way.' The key to the nest major transition is knowledge a firm biblical understanding that will sustain us over the long haul. Not long alter graduation, usually around 25 years of age ycars of age. I begin to 7 21 discover that! don't live in complete independence. In reality I am interdependent with other people and with institutions in our society. Ill don't do a good job at work, I don't get a raise or I get fired. I htty a car or a house, but now I'm commuted to the bank and my payment schedule Ill get married I discover that all my decisions, dreams and plans ale now inti na ely connected to someone else. And the arrival 01 childi en makes that interdependence all the more inescapable.

If independence is a time of high idea lisni, then the beginning of interdependence is j List the opposite. It feels like a wet blanket or a slap in the face. It's during this stret'Th of life that we will throw away our ideas if they were shallow, if they had no real substance.

These first few years of interdependence force us to determine how we will live out our ideal'z. We either put them in the crucible of new ptessures and responsibilities to reline and strengthen our vision, or we decide they don't fit with reality and we just put our plans for changing the world on ice. I call this early stage of interdependence.

Making It Through "519 Chill Country"

In Big Chill country you realize in no uncertain terms that the goals of the culture around you (which you find making incleasing demands on you as you become interdependent) and God's goal of reaching the nations with his love have little to do with each other. You're going to have a tough time fulfilling your culture's expectation while you try to stay faithful to your vision for the nations. Here's where you will have to decide whose 17-25 side you're really on. Everyone around you-from your boss 10 your church so your family will probably do their best to put the chill on your determination to make your life count for the nations. And it's going to seem a lot easier just to become another Jonah.

If your ideas were based on shallow grounding, there will be nothing but personal grits available to help you stick to the vision. But ilyou have sunk your tools deep down into Jesus and his approach to life, you will have all the resources of heaven hackingynu up as you move forward.

Some ofus, like my friend Caih in chapter two, hit Big Chill country and run away to the mountains because we just can't put it all together. Others just drop thevision and try' to blend into society. Butsome, by God's grace, are described by their friends years later as people who faithfully lived out the ideals of their youth, those who integrated a biblical view of reality into their whole lives.

"Sit down young man! If God wants to evangelize the heathen he'll do it without your help or mine." That was the reaction William Carey got from the elders of his church when he suggested I UKATI sending missionaries to the millions of unreached    peoples of his day. I The church in his generation didn't have any 25 categories for such a venture it didn't lit into their notions of what the church was all about They weren't excited about some young radical telling them What to do either.

But Carey wasn't about to be discouraged. He kept praving,accumulatinginformation on the needs of (he world, and studying God's heart for the world in Scripture  Carey's convictions became so much a pail of him that there was no keeping him home, try as everyone around him might.

Carey is known today as the father of Protestant missions from site English speaking world. It was said of him that his life was basically the outworking of the dreams ofhisyouth. He went through Big Chill country but his basis was firm.

What are We Up Against?

Let's take a close look at some of the dynamics.

You rush home all excited about your newfound vision to reach the world with Jesus' love, Your folks tell you they're happy for you, but explain that you'll eventually realize that all good Christians are supposed to "grow up, settle down, get a secure, wellpaying job and he a good Christian." Drop the temperature a few degrees.

Say your parents paid for your education. Guilt settles in as they tell you just how much they sacrificed to ensure you could cad a responsible life and take care of them as they got older. And besides, you're the one, of all the children in the family, that they were really counting on because you "had things going for you." I think I feel a draft!

Maybe you get married and your spouse has a different view Of the good tile. You made the mistake of marrying someone who wasn't committed to your ideals. Or maybe you are committed to the same ideals, but have children. Your parents become outraged that you are considering overseas service and they lay it on thick that no loving God would expect poor, helpless little children to be thrust into those awful conditions. Think about your children, not yourselves!

Let's say you get a good job. All of a sudden the things you condemned in your idealistic days are actually within your grasp. You used to decry money being spent on fancy cars, big houses, exotic restaurants, expensive vacations and all sorts of technological gadgets, but now you have the power to own them! Maybe you'll splurge and then realize that there was nothing in it and let go  Maybe you'll begin to enjoy living with a few luxuries, and convince yourself that you really "need" them. It's getting downright chilly!

Anthropologists have done us a big favor in this area. They explain that al our core is a basic view of reality a worldview. That wouldview determines who we are, what we will value, and how we behave, if our worldview is un-Christian of less than biblical, it will inevitably surface in values and actions that contradict the heart of the biblical worldview.

And this is where the conflict arises during the Big Chill. If turns out that t haven't really changed my worldview while I was idealistically exploring new values and actions, then I will give up my ideals and take on the culture's lifestyle. This is precisely what Solomon was saying in Proverbs 19:2; if we don't get something solid under our zeal, we're sure to miss the way.

But if my actions stem from a biblical worldview, then it becomes a matter of faithful obedience. I can allowa fad to slip away, but not something that goes as deep as obedience. I've decided to follow Jesus with my whole life, and I understand where he's going, It's no longer a matter of choosing a career or lifestyle it's a matter of faithfulness.

Let's take a look at the biblical worldview Jonah needed.